In scale of culture, few among my Flock
Hold lower rank than this sequestered Pair;
But humbleness of heart descends from Heaven;
And that best gift of Heaven hath fallen on them;
Abundant recompense for every want.
-Stoop from your height, ye proud, and copy these!
Who, in their noiseless dwelling-place, can hear
The voice of wisdom whispering Scripture texts
For the mind's government, or temper's peace;
And recommending, for their mutual need,
Forgiveness, patience, hope, and charity!"
“Much was I pleased," the gray-haired Wanderer said,
"When to those shining fields our notice first
You turned; and yet more pleased have from your lips
Gathered this fair report of them who dwell
In that retirement; whither, by such course
Of evil hap and good as oft awaits
A lone wayfaring Man, I once was brought.
Dark on my road the autumnal evening fell
While I was traversing yon mountain-pass,
And night succeeded with unusual gloom;
So that my feet and hands at length became
Guides better than mine eyes-until a light
High in the gloom appeared, too high, methought
For human habitation; but I longed
To reach it, destitute of other hope.
I looked with steadiness as Sailors look
On the north star, or watch-tower's distant lamp,
And saw the light-now fixed - and shifting now —
Not like a dancing meteor, but in line
Of never-varying motion, to and fro.
It is no night-fire of the naked hills,
Thought I, some friendly covert must be near.
With this persuasion thitherward my steps
I turn, and reach at last the guiding Light;
Joy to myself! but to the heart of Her
Who there was standing on the open hill,
Its wasted splendour to repair, the door
Opened, and she re-entered with glad looks,
Her Helpmate following. Hospitable fare,
Frank conversation, made the evening's treat:
Need a bewildered Traveller wish for more'
But more was given; I studied as we sate
By the bright fire, the good Man's face-composed
Of features elegant; an open brow
Of undisturbed humanity; a cheek
Suffused with something of a feminine hue;
Eyes beaming courtesy and mild regard;
But, in the quicker turns of the discourse,
Expression slowly varying, that evinced
A tardy apprehension. From a fount
Lost, thought I, in the obscurities of time,
But honoured once, these features and that mien
May have descended, though I see them here.
In such a Man, so gentle and subdued,
Withal so graceful in his gentleness,
A race illustrious for heroic deeds,
Humbled, but not degraded, may expire.
This pleasing fancy (cherished and upheld
By sundry recollections of such fall
From high to low, ascent from low to high,
As books record, and even the careless mind
Cannot but notice among men and things)
Went with me to the place of my repose.
"Roused by the crowing cock at dawn of day,
I yet had risen too late to interchange
A morning salutation with my Host,
Gone forth already to the far-off seat
Of his day's work. Three dark mid-winter months
'Pass,' said the Matron, and I never see,
'Save when the Sabbath brings its kind release,
'My Helpmate's face by light of day. He quits
'His door in darkness, nor till dusk returns.
'And, through Heaven's blessing, thus we gain the
(The same kind Matron whom your tongue hath praised) For which we pray; and for the wants provide
Alarm and disappointment! The alarm
Ceased, when she learned through what mishap I came,
And by what help had gained those distant fields.
Drawn from her Cottage, on that open height,
Bearing a lantern in her hand she stood,
Or paced the ground — to guide her Husband home,
By that unwearied signal, kenned afar;
An anxious duty! which the lofty Site,
Traversed but by a few irregular paths,
Imposes, whensoe'er untoward chance
Detains him after his accustomed hour
Till night lies black upon the ground. But come,
Come,' said the Matron, 'to our poor Abode;
Those dark rocks hide it!' Entering, I beheld
A blazing fire-beside a cleanly hearth
Sate down; and to her office, with leave asked,
The Dame returned. - Or ere that glowing pile
Of mountain turf required the Builder's hand
'Of sickness, accident, and helpless age. 'Companions have I many; many Friends, 'Dependants, Comforters-my Wheel, my Fire, All day the House-clock ticking in mine ear, 'The cackling Hen, the tender Chicken brood, 'And the wild Birds that gather round my porch 'This honest Sheep-dog's countenance I read; 'With him can talk; nor blush to waste a word 'On Creatures less intelligent and shrewd. 'And if the blustering Wind that drives the clouds 'Care not for me, he lingers round my door, 'And makes me pastime when our tempers suit; '—But, above all, my Thoughts are my support. The Matron ended - nor could I forbear To exclaim-'O happy! yielding to the law Of these privations, richer in the main! While thankless thousands are opprest and clogged By ease and leisure-by the very wealth
And pride of opportunity made poor;
While tens of thousands falter in their path,
And sink, through utter want of cheering light;
For you the hours of labour do not flag;
For you each Evening hath its shining Star,
And every Sabbath-day its golden Sun.'”
"Yes!" said the Solitary with a smile
That seemed to break from an expanding heart,
"The untutored Bird may found, and so construct,
And with such soft materials line her nest,
Fixed in the centre of a prickly brake,
That the thorns wound her not; they only guard.
Powers not unjustly likened to those gifts
Of happy instinct which the woodland Bird =Shares with her species, Nature's grace sometimes Upon the Individual doth confer,
Among her higher creatures born and trained
=To use of reason. And, I own, that tired
Of the ostentatious world-a swelling stage
With empty actions and vain passions stuffed,
And from the private struggles of mankind
Hping for less than I could wish to hope,
Far less than once I trusted and believed -
I love to hear of Those, who, not contending
Nor summoned to contend for Virtue's prize,
Jass not the humbler good at which they aim;
Best with a kindly faculty to blunt
The edge of adverse circumstance, and turn
Into their contraries the petty plagues
And hinderances with which they stand beset.
In early youth, among my native hills,
I knew a Scottish Peasant who possessed
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A few small Crofts of stone-encumbered ground;
Masses of every shape and size, that lay
Scattered about under the mouldering walls
Of a rough precipice; and some, apart,
In quarters unobnoxious to such chance,
As if the Moon had showered them down in spite;
But he repined not. Though the plough was scared
By these obstructions, 'round the shady stones
A fertilising moisture,' said the Swain,
'Gathers, and is preserved; and feeding dews
And damps, through all the droughty Summer day,
'From out their substance issuing maintain
Herbage that never fails; no grass springs up
green, so fresh, sc plentiful, as mine!'
But thinly sown these Natures; rare, at least,
The mutual aptitude of seed and soil
That yields such kindly product. He-whose bed
Perhaps yon loose sods cover, the poor Pensioner
Brought yesterday from our sequestered dell
Here to lie down in lasting quiet — he,
If living now, could otherwise report
Of rustic loneliness: that gray-haired Orphan —
So call him, for humanity to him
-feelingly could have told,
In life, in death, what Solitude can breed
Of selfishness, and cruelty, and vice;
Or, if it breed not, hath not power to cure.
- But your compliance, Sir! with our request
My words too long have hindered."
Perhaps incited rather, by these shocks, In no ungracious opposition, given To the confiding spirit of his own Experienced faith, the reverend Pastor said, Around him looking, "Where shall I begin? Who shall be first selected from my Flock Gathered together in their peaceful fold ?" He paused and having lifted up his eyes To the pure Heaven, he cast them down again Upon the earth beneath his feet; and spake. -"To a mysteriously-consorted Pair This place is consecrate; to Death and Life And to the best Affections that proceed From their conjunction; - consecrate to faith In Him who bled for man upon the Cross; Hallowed to Revelation; and no less To Reason's mandates; and the hopes divine › Of pure Imagination; —above all, To Charity, and Love, that have provided, Within these precincts, a capacious bed And receptacle, open to the good And evil, to the just and the unjust; In which they find an equal resting-place: Even as the multitude of kindred brooks And streams, whose murmur fills this hollow vale, Whether their course be turbulent or smooth, Their waters clear or sullied, all are lost Within the bosom of yon crystal Lake, And end their journey in the same repose!
"And blest are they who sleep; and we that know, While in a spot like this we breathe and walk,
| That All beneath us by the wings are covered
Of motherly Humanity, outspread
And gathering all within their tender shade,
Though loth and slow to come! A battle-field,
In stillness left when slaughter is no more,
With this compared, is a strange spectacle
A rueful sight the wild shore strewn with wrecks,
And trod by people in afflicted quest
Of friends and kindred, whom the angry Sea
Restores not to their prayer! Ah! who would think
That all the scattered subjects which compose
Earth's melancholy vision through the space
Of all her climes; these wretched, these depraved,
To virtue lost, insensible of peace,
From the delights of charity cut off,
To pity dead, the Oppressor and the Opprest;
Tyrants who utter the destroying word,
And slaves who will consent to be destroyed-
Were of one species with the sheltered few,
Who, with a dutiful and tender hand,
Did lodge, in an appropriated spot,
This file of Infants; some that never breathed
The vital air; and others, who, allowed
That privilege, did yet expire too soon,
Or with too brief a warning, to admit
Administration of the holy rite
That lovingly consigns the Babe to the arms
Of Jesus, and his everlasting care.
These that in trembling hope are laid apart;
And the besprinkled Nursling, unrequired
Till he begins to smile upon the breast
That feeds him; and the tottering Little-one
Taken from air and sunshine when the rose
Of Infancy first blooms upon his cheek;
As the sole spring and fountain-head of tears,
His own peculiar utterance for distress
Or gladness.) No," the philosophic Priest
Continued, "t is not in the vital seat
Of feeling to produce them, without aid
From the pure Soul, the Soul sublime and pure;
With her two faculties of Eye and Ear,
The one by which a Creature, whom his sins
Have rendered prone, can upward look to Heaven;
The other that empowers him to perceive
The voice of Deity, on height and plain,
Whispering those truths in stillness, which the WORD,
To the four quarters of the winds, proclaims.
Not without such assistance could the use
The thinking, thoughtless School-boy; the bold Youth Of these benign observances prevail.
Of soul impetuous, and the bashful Maid
Smitten while all the promises of life
Are opening round her; those of middle age,
Cast down while confident in strength they stand,
Like pillars fixed more firmly, as might seem,
And more secure, by very weight of all
That, for support, rests on them; the decayed
And burthensome; and lastly, that poor few
Whose light of reason is with age extinct;
The hopeful and the hopeless, first and last,
The earliest summoned and the longest spared
Are here deposited, with tribute paid
Various, but unto each some tribute paid;
As if, amid these peaceful hills and groves,
Society were touched with kind concern;
And gentle Nature grieved, that One should die;**
Or, if the change demanded no regret,
Observed the liberating stroke- and blessed.
-And whence that tribute? wherefore these regards? Not from the naked Heart alone of Man (Though claiming high distinction upon earth
*"And suffering Nature grieved that one should die."
+ The sentiments and opinions here uttered are in unison with those expressed in an Essay upon Epitaphs, which was furnished by the author for Mr. Coleridge's periodical work, "The Friend;'
Thus are they born, thus fostered, and maintained;
And by the care prospective of our wise
Forefathers, who, to guard against the shocks,
The fluctuation and decay of things,
Embodied and established these high Truths
In solemn Institutions:- Men convinced
That Life is Love and Immortality,
The Being one, and one the Element.
There lies the channel, and original bed,
From the beginning, hollowed out and scooped
For Man's Affections-else betrayed and lost,
And swallowed up 'mid deserts infinite!
-This is the genuine course, the aim, and end
Of prescient Reason; all conclusions else
Are abject, vain, presumptuous, and perverse.
The faith partaking of those holy times,
Life, I repeat, is energy of Love
Divine or human; exercised in pain,
In strife, and tribulation; and ordained,
If so approved and sanctified, to pass,
Through shades and silent rest, to endless joy."
and as they are dictated by a spirit congenial to that which per vades this and the two succeeding books, the sympathing reader will not be displeased to see the Essay bere anneni [See Appendix VI,. to which the Essay upon Epitapha has beea transferred. — H. R.]
THE CHURCH-YARD AMONG THE MOUNTAINS
Poet's Address to the State and Church of England - The Pastor not inferior to the ancient Worthies of the Church-He begins his Narratives with an Instance of unrequited Love - Anguish of Mind subdued - and how — The lonely Miner, an Instance of Perseverance, which leads by contrast to an Example of abused talents, irresolution, and weakness-Solitary, applying this covertly to his own case, asks for an Instance of some Stranger, whose disposition may have led him to end his days here -Pastor, in answer, gives an account of the harmonising influence of Solitude upon two Men of opposite principles, who had encountered agitations in public life-The Rule by which Peace may be obtained expressed - and where- Solitary hints at an overpowering Fatality- Answer of the Pastor-What subjects he will exclude from his Narratives-Conversation upon this-Instance of an unamiable character, a Female-and why given - Contrasted with this, a meek Sufferer from unguarded and betrayed love-Instance of heavier guilt, and its consequences to the Offender-With this Instance of a Marriage Contract broken is contrasted one of a Widower, evidencing his faithful affection towards his deceased wife by his care of theu female Children.
HAIL to the Crown by Freedom shaped - to gird
An English Sovereign's brow! and to the Throne
Whereon he sits! Whose deep Foundations lie
In veneration and the People's love;
Whose steps are equity, whose seat is law.
- Hail to the State of England! And conjoin
With this a salutation as devout,
Made to the spiritual Fabric of her Church;
Founded in truth; by blood of Martyrdom
Cemented; by the hands of Wisdom reared
In beauty of Holiness, with ordered pomp,
Decent, and unreproved. The voice, that greets
The majesty of both, shall pray for both;
That, mutually protected and sustained,
They may endure long as the sea surrounds
This favoured Land, or sunshine warms her soil.
-And O, ye swelling hills, and spacious plains!
Besprent from shore to shore with steeple-towers
And spires whose "silent finger points to Heaven;"*
**An instinctive taste teaches men to build their churches it fat countries with spire-steeples, which, as they cannot be referred to any other object, point as with silent finger to the sky and stars, and sometimes, when they reflect the brazen light
Nor wanting, at wide intervals, the bulk
Of ancient Minster, lifted above the cloud
Of the dense air, which town or city breeds
To intercept the sun's glad beams — may ne'er
That true succession fail of English Hearts,
Who, with Ancestral feeling, can perceive
What in those holy Structures ye possess
Of ornamental interest, and the charm
Of pious sentiment diffused afar,
And human charity, and social love.
-Thus never shall the indignities of Time
Approach their reverend graces, unopposed;
Nor shall the Elements be free to hurt
Their fair proportions; nor the blinder rage
Of bigot zeal madly to overturn;
And, if the desolating hand of war
Spare them, they shall continue to bestow-
Upon the thronged abodes of busy Men
(Depraved, and ever prone to fill their minds
Exclusively with transitory things)
An air and mien of dignified pursuit;
Of sweet civility on rustic wilds.
The poet, fostering for his native land Such hope, entreats that Servants may abound
fanch though rainy sunset, appear like a pyramid of flame baring heaven-ward.”—S. T. COLERIDGE: Biographia Lite Of those pure Altars worthy; Ministers rach. xxii. Satyrane's Letters,' No. 1. Detached from pleasure, to the love of gain
Superior, insusceptible of pride,
And by ambitious longings undisturbed;
Men, whose delight is where their duty leads
Or fixes them; whose least distinguished day
Shines with some portion of that heavenly lustre
Which makes the Sabbath lovely in the sight
Of blessed angels, pitying human cares.
-And, as on earth it is the doom of Truth
To be perpetually attacked by foes
Open or covert, be that Priesthood still,
For her defence, replenished with a Band
Of strenuous Champions, in scholastic arts
Thoroughly disciplined; nor (if in course
Of the revolving World's disturbances
Cause should recur, which righteous Heaven avert!
To meet such trial) from their spiritual Sires
Degenerate; who, constrained to wield the sword
Of disputation, shrunk not, though assailed
With hostile din, and combating in sight
Of angry umpires, partial and unjust;
And did, thereafter, bathe their hands in fire,
So to declare the conscience satisfied:
Nor for their bodies would accept release;
But, blessing God and praising him, bequeathed
With their last breath, from out the smouldering flame,
The faith which they by diligence had earned,
Or, through illuminating grace, received,
For their dear Countrymen, and all mankind.
O high example, constancy divine!
Even such a man (inheriting the zeal
And from the sanctity of elder times
Not deviating, -a Priest, the like of whom,
If multiplied, and in their stations set,
Would o'er the bosom of a joyful Land
Spread true Religion, and her genuine fruits)
Before me stood that day; on holy ground
Fraught with the relics of mortality,
Exalting tender themes, by just degrees
To lofty raised; and to the highest, last;
The head and mighty paramount of truths;
Immortal life, in never-fading worlds,
For mortal Creatures, conquered and secured.
From Nature's kindliness received a frame Robust as ever rural labour bred."
The Solitary answered: "Such a Form
Full well I recollect. We often crossed
Each other's path; but, as the Intruder seemed
Fondly to prize the silence which he kept,
And I as willingly did cherish mine,
We met, and passed, like shadows. I have heard,
From my good Host, that he was crazed in brain
By unrequited love; and scaled the rocks,
Dived into caves, and pierced the matted woods,
In hope to find some virtuous herb of power
To cure his malady!"
66 Alas! before to-morrow's sun goes down His habitation will be here: for him That open grave is destined."
Of pain and grief!" the Solitary asked, "Believe it not-oh! never could that be!"
"He loved," the Vicar answered, “deeply loved. At length to tell his love, but sued in vain; Loved fondly, truly, fervently; and dared
- Rejected - yea repelled—and, if with scorn
Upon the haughty maiden's brow, 't is but
A high-prized plume which female beauty wears
In wantonness of conquest, or puts on
To cheat the world, or from herself to hide
Humiliation, when no longer free.
That he could brook, and glory in;- but when
The tidings came that she whom he had wooed
Was wedded to another, and his heart
Was forced to rend away its only hope,
Then, Pity could have scarcely found on earth
An Object worthier of regard than he,
In the transition of that bitter hour!
Lost was she, lost; nor could the Sufferer say
That in the act of preference he had been
Unjustly dealt with; but the Maid was gone!
Had vanished from his prospects and desires;
Not by translation to the heavenly Choir
Who have put off their mortal spoils - ah no!
She lives another's wishes to complete,—
'Joy be their lot, and happiness,' he cried,
'His lot and hers, as misery is mine!'
"Such was that strong concussion; but the Man
Who trembled, trunk and limbs, like some huge O
By a fierce tempest shaken, soon resumed
The steadfast quiet natural to a Mind
Of composition gentle and sedate,
And in its movements circumspect and slow.
To books, and to the long-forsaken desk,
O'er which enchained by science he had loved
To bend, he stoutly re-addressed himself,
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